Housing and Consumer Standards Programme

Why we referred ourselves to the government's Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), what we're doing to improve and how to get in contact if you're a tenant.

We asked the Regulator to review of our performance, in relation to the recently adopted Consumer Standards which apply to all registered providers of social housing.

We specifically asked the Regulator to look at issues around record keeping and ensuring all safety measures meet the required standard. For example, whether electrical testing has been done.

The Regulator reached its conclusions and published a Regulatory Notice.

The Regulatory Notice confirms our concerns and details its findings, along with recommendations for which areas need addressing most urgently.

We accept the findings of the Regulator and are very sorry that we've fallen below these standards. All tenants should expect us to deliver a high standard of housing and comply with national standards, and we share these expectations.

We're working hard to put things right quickly and improve our arrangements for the maintenance of council owned homes.

What we're doing

We'll continue working with the Regulator until we have satisfied their concerns and achieved full compliance with the consumer standards for our tenants.

We've set up a dedicated programme board to oversee our improvement plans and make sure that work is delivered at pace.

The Housing and Consumer Standards Programme is overseen by senior leaders at the council including the Executive Director of Growth and Regeneration.

The programme focuses on 5 key areas for improvement:

  • Safety and quality: how we inspect and survey homes, carry out important remedial works to ensure that homes are safe, and how we collect data to ensure that we have good records
  • Complaints and resident feedback: ensuring that we handle complaints correctly, act upon them and give residents the opportunity to feedback and influence decision making
  • Neighbourhood: improving the standards of communal spaces, ensuring that we respond to domestic abuse and antisocial behaviour effectively, and develop locality plans that meet the needs of residents
  • Tenancy: reviewing our approach to tenancy management and how we allocate and let our homes
  • Cross cutting actions: a strategic review of our housing services that includes our data management, reporting, policy, and IT systems

We're prioritising the most urgent health and safety related works first.

We're also looking closely at our data to better understand what works have been completed and what is outstanding.

By carrying out checks and surveys in homes and updating our records, we're gaining a better understanding of where we're behind and where more work is needed, such as electrical remedial works.

Progress and reporting

We'll be reporting regularly to the Homes and Housing Delivery Committee to provide an update on the progress of the Housing and Consumer Standards Programme.

These reports will include data on:

  • actions completed
  • outstanding actions
  • risk level
  • business as usual works that have been completed

Find the latest report.

If you're a tenant

If you're a tenant or leaseholder, you can get involved and have your say in improving the maintenance of your homes by taking part in our regular Housing Forums, Social Housing drop-in sessions, or by joining a service user group.

If you have any concerns or questions:

Letter sent to tenants

Your questions answered

If you've got a question about our self-referral, check the documents below to see if we've already answered your query:

Tell us about a problem with a form, page or Citizen Portal account